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Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906

Biographical Sketch by Wendi Capehart

Paul Laurence Dunbar was an American poet, novelist, lyricist, and essayist. He was born in 1872 in Dayton, Ohio, and was the first member of his family to be born free. His mother and her two sons from her first marriage had been emancipated by the Civil War. They moved from Kentucky to Dayton, Ohio. Later Matilda married Joshua Dunbar, who had escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad, moving to Canada from Kentucky before the Civil War. When war began, Joshua returned to the U.S. and joined a black regiment in Massachussets. His regiment discharged him for varicose veins. Just around two months later, Joshua enlisted with another regiment so he could continue to make his contribution toward the end of slavery in the U.S.

Both of Paul's parents wanted Paul to get an education. Matilda had grown up enjoying the poems and stories she heard read aloud by the slave owner in the big house. Shortly after she arrived in Dayton, she signed up for night school classes so she could learn how to read the Bible and keep her own accounts. She taught Paul to read when he was four. Joshua had taught himself to read.

When Paul was still a little boy his younger sister Elizabeth was born. Sadly, she died on her third birthday, sickly and malnourished because the family struggled to make ends meet. Matilda made money washing clothes for other people. Matilda's two older sons did odd jobs to bring in extra income in between school. Joshua was a plasterer who finished the inside rooms of new houses or repaired old ones, but he could not find work. This frustrated and embittered him. Not too long after little Elizabeth died, Joshua left the home and did not return. Matilda continued to work hard to bring up her three boys on her own, often telling them stories and reciting poems to them as they worked together. Later even Paul, whose health was never robust, brought in some money working as a lamp-lighter in the evenings.

And always, he played with words. His mother said he started putting together rhyming words when he was four, and made up his first poem at six. He recited one of his poems at his church when he was twelve or thirteen, and published a poem not much later. He delighted in the works of Wordsworth published in his school readers. He enjoyed the stories his mother told of people she had known, and he reinvented them and turned them into poems, dialect poems, exuding warmth and affection.

Although it took a lot of hard work and sacrifice, Matilda Dunbar put together enough money for Paul to attend high school. He was the only Black student in his class, though there were some others in other grades.

Dunbar was well liked, serving as editor of the school paper, president of the literary society. and a popular member of the debate club. One of his best friends was Orville Wright, who, with his brother, built the first airplane in America to have a successful flight. They remained good friends all their lives.

Paul loved to write, and several of his poems had been published while he was still in high school. His work as editor for the high school paper, and his previous published poems, gave him hope that he could find work as a journalist after graduation. If he had been white, that is probably what would have happened. But the Dayton paper that had published his poetry told him they couldn't and wouldn't let Black people work as reporters. Paul looked for other work and eventually had to became an elevator man. Elevators at that time were not self serve. An elevator man (or woman) would stay in the elevator at all times and help people take the elevator to the correct floor.

Paul didn't love it, but the work did give him the chance to meet new people and study them, and to write down notes and poems when the work was slow. He had books and papers with him on the elevator, using his stool as a desk.

He was able to publish his first collection of poems with the help of a loan from somebody at the printing press. He sold copies of his book to people who rode his elevator and he performed recitations at schools and other public events where he could sell his books. His poems impressed many people who read his books and they would often give copies of his book to other people. Finally the book came to the attention of Walter Dean Howells, a famous and influential literary critic at the time. He loved it and gave it glowing praise in a review he wrote and published. Now everybody wanted to read Paul Laurence Dunbar. He had made it! He was famous for his poetry and invited everywhere.

He had fallen in love with the poetry and photograph of a beautiful young teacher named Alice Moore, and they corresponded for two years. When they finally met, Paul proposed, and she accepted. When his success as a poet seemed assured, they quietly married--but her family objected because they did not believe Paul be able to support Alice. Alice didn't care. She loved his poetry and was proud of his work.

He worked for a time at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. He had a cough that would not go away. Alice urged him to quit his job and devote himself to writing his poetry. Alice and Paul were of the first generation of Black Americans after emancipation, and it was important to both of them that young Black men and women prove they could excel in every field. Alice and Paul wanted to see him succeed as a poet as much for their people as for Paul's own sake. His work could be a legacy for other freedom-loving descendants of slaves.

The cough grew worse, even after he quit the library job. It was diagnosed as tuberculosis, an infectious disease of the lungs that was responsible for many deaths in the early 20th century, before scientists discovered the bacteria that caused it.

Paul was sick, weak, often in great pain, and he knew he was going to die before he finished writing the poems and stories he had to tell. He had said he wanted to "interpret my own people through song and story," and he was not finished yet. Doctors prescribed alcohol to numb the pain and to help treat the lung disorder. It actually makes tuberculosis worse, but it would be too late for Paul. He soon became addicted, and when he was drinking too much, Alice described his behavior as "beastly." She left him after one brutal fight, and never returned. Paul sent her many letters begging for reconciliation. She refused, but she did write his physician and tell him that she would come immediately if Paul's condition worsened. Paul's doctor, the first Black doctor in Dayton, died after a short bout with typhoid, and Paul died just a few weeks later. Alice learned about it in a newspaper.

Although they were separated for four years, Alice kept Dunbar's name the rest of her life, and she promoted his work, as did many others. His mother kept the house they shared together as a shrine to Paul's memory. She kept his room and study as he left them, and welcomed visitors who would listen to her stories of her gifted son.

Dozens of schools have been named after him. Lines from his poems have inspired later poets and writers, so that you may meet a line from a Dunbar poem in the title of a book, or in the lines of another poem. The stories and poems you read are talking to each other, and the more you read, the more voices you can recognize.

I hope you enjoy discovering what Paul Laurence Dunbar has to say.